HC Deb 14 March 1983 vol 39 cc5-6W
Mr. Cockeram

asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will make a statement about the payment of grants to local education authorities.

Sir Keith Joseph

The Government propose to introduce legislation, as soon as parliamentary time permits, empowering the Secretary of State for Education and Science to pay education support grants to local education authorities in England in support of expenditure on certain activities. I am consulting the local authority associations on the basis of the consultation paper following. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales will be consulting the appropriate organisations on similar proposals for the Principality.

A proposed new power to pay education support grants to local education authorities in support of certain items of educational expenditure

  1. 1. The partnership of central and local government in the national policy of providing a varied and comprehensive educational service in every area is enshrined in legislation. It is the responsibility of local education authorities (LEAs), in the light of their statutory functions and the needs and circumstances within each area, to determine their level of expenditure on education and its broad deployment between different parts of the service. LEAs have long accepted that, in that determination, account is taken of the policies and priorities of the Government; but the ultimate determination is theirs.
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  2. 2. In the interest of making this partnership serve more effectively the purpose for which it was established, the Government propose to introduce legislation empowering the Secretary of State for Education and Science to pay grants (education support grants) to LEAs in England in support of expenditure on certain activities. The Secretary of State would exercise this power in order to assist LEAs to innovate and respond swiftly to new demands on the education service; to promote qualitative changes and improvements in standards of provision in areas of particular importance; and to encourage them to redeploy their expenditure at the margin in accordance with objectives perceived to be of particular importance at the national level. In making this proposal the Government have taken into account the recommendation of the Education, Science and Arts Select Committee in its report on Secondary Curriculum and Examinations, that the DES should have the ability to fund direct such important new developments on a temporary basis as seem to it to be desirable.
  3. 3. The power would require primary legislation. It is proposed that the activities to be supported by the grants should be defined in regulations which would be subject to affirmative resolution. This would ensure appropriate Parliamentary consideration of each activity, and provide for a controlled yet rapid response to new needs.
  4. 4. The activities supported would be determined after consultation with the local authority associations, and would be expected to change over time with changes in the education service, in the economy and society. No activity would receive permanent support through these grants, which would be payable beyond a five-year period only in exceptional circumstances. Grants for each particular class of activity would be made subject to appropriate criteria, and would probably not in practice be made to all LEAs. Examples of activities which might be supported by the grants are:
    1. (a) curricular changes in mathematics following the report of the Cockcroft Committee;
    2. (b) the development of a more practical slant to the final years of compulsory education for those pupils for whom examinations at 16-plus were not designed;
    3. (c) the development of teaching programmes related to the proposed CPVE and other initiatives for the 16–19 age group;
    4. (d) the extension to new areas of technically orientated and pre-vocational courses at various levels, building on the recently announced Technical and Vocational Education Initiative;
    5. (e) the supply of microelectronic equipment to very seriously physically handicapped children.
  5. 5. The total grant for each year would be restricted to a small fraction of the Government's plans for total local authority expenditure on education. The intention is that the proportion supported by the grants should be less than half of one per cent.—which in 1983–84 is £47 million (0.5 per cent. of £9,428 million).
  6. 6. A maximum rate of 70 per cent. would be provided for in the legislation. The total grant would be deducted from total Exchequer grant before the balance was distributed as rate support grants. (The same arrangement applies to grants made under the urban programme). The existence of these new grants would not affect directly the Government's plans for total local authority expenditure. However, the needs for which the grants could be applied would be taken into account by the Government in arriving at their planned level of expenditure on education in a particular year.
  7. 7. It is hoped to introduce legislation for education support grants as soon as Parliamentary time permits. The precise basis on which grants would be distributed will be determined after consultation, but it is envisaged that they would be allocated in response to bids by LEAs.